NEW DELHI: Swedish home furniture giant Ikea has pegged India as its next frontier of growth and is leaving no stone unturned to position itself as a viable and competitive alternative to the unorganised furniture businesses that are predominantly preferred by the masses. To this end, the brand has launched a new integrated campaign across TVC, digital and OOH channels which expands further on Ikea India’s mantra of ‘home is where it all begins’, revolves around evolving roles within a growing family. The new ad encourages everyone in the family to pitch in when it comes to new responsibilities that lead to changes in everyone’s lives, and also reflects brand Ikea’s progressive values.
With Covid2019 disrupting everyday lives across the world, confining people to their homes, there could not have been a better message to drive in. While the first campaign launched last year showed how a family setting up their space in a new city attempts to bring a bit of outdoor cheer into their home, the latest one goes one step further. It depicts evolving family values in a nuclear household as it tries to cope with changes in their personal lives.
The ad portrays a young family expecting their second baby with endearing scenes of how the father playfully guides and trains his son on what to expect when the baby is here. The ad shows the dad involving his elder child in caring and doing his bit for his to-be-born sibling, while the mom-to-be is shown working on her laptop. The TVC highlights that being a family is not just about having fun together or sharing a meal, but also about partnering with each other to navigate through challenges and milestones that life brings. This becomes even more important in today’s times with changing individual roles in nuclear households. Ikea encourages one to explore this world of possibilities along with its wide range of affordable home furnishing solutions via the ad.
The campaign will run on TV in both Telangana and Mumbai markets on regional channels. Telangana market will see the TVC with a Telugu voice over running to deepen the local connect while the Mumbai market will have an English voiceover to appeal to a more diverse and urbane population.
The furnishing company is fast expanding its footprints across the country, having signed a major land acquisition deal in Noida involving an investment valued at Rs 5,500 crores. This will be Ikea’s first mega mall store in India, while also being its third flagship store here after Hyderabad and Navi Mumbai. The 47,833 square metre plot in Noida will be developed into an Ikea-anchored retail hub, the 46th of the Ingka group’s such ‘meeting places’ globally.
Ikea India marketing head Amitabh Pande, while talking to indiantelevision.com on marketing challenges faced by the brand here, said that India being a new market for the brand, it plans to “explore understanding people’s life at home and connecting deeply and meaningfully with our customers.” That the brand has its eyes firmly set on the long haul in India is also made clear from the multiple campaigns launched across different media to make its presence felt by reaching out to the Indian consumer.
Pande shared, “At the heart of it , it is about delivering well designed, functional, affordable products that speak to the existing and changing needs from the life at home of many people in India.”
He added that the takeaways from the year 2020 have been that “we have been forced to re-evaluate our ways of living” which has gone to “set us on a more humble, reflective and conscientious path, in terms of how we view life.”
